Does Vivaldi allow extensions to open windows?
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I installed the Tabs Outliner extensions which is supposed to create a new window that displays a vertical tree like representation of your tabs. When I clicked on the icon on the top right, no window is created. However, I have two other extensions installed, uBlock and Tampermonekey that open an overlay interface when clicked upon that work fine. This suggests to me that Vivaldi has issues with extensions that create custom windows. Any way to fix this in the current version of Vivaldi (The latest development snapshot as of this post's date) and if not, any plans in the future to add support for these kinds of extensions?
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It stands to reason that creating new windows with extensions would be problematic in Vivaldi. That's because a Vivaldi window is a different entity from a Chrome window. It is composed of completely different elements, and does not conform to Chromium rules. I suppose with a ton more coding, the creation, positioning and proportioning of new windows by extensions could be made possible, but I certainly would not look for it in the near future.
That said, I tried Tab Outliner in NeuOpera and truly, genuinely, hated it. I limped along with Sidewise, living with the fact that it consumed additional resources as an added window, and with the fact that it could not be kept properly proportioned, until Opera got its side panel and side panel tab extension, whereupon I uninstalled Sidewise.
But, yeah. Windows from extensions can, I think, be expected to continue to be problematic. Instead, you're more likely to find Vivaldi gradually adding the capabilities of things like Sidewise and Tab Outliner to its own implementation of vertical tabs.
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Honestly, I tried to make do with Vivaldi's current implementation of vertical tabs and I couldn't.
Three things Vivaldi needs to replace Tabs Outliner in my life:
1. Allow the formation of hierarchical tab and window groups.
2. The ability to save these groups and hence have a way to restore a session from the past. This is a true cure for the disorder of tab-mania.
3. Allow the labeling of such groups.The currently implemented tab "stacks" don't cut it (though I do like the ability to display the member tabs as tiles).
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Session management is sure to come to Vivaldi. It was a brick in the foundation of Olde Opera.
Tree-style tabs have also been requested several times (an option which I purely hate), so some version of that is likely as well, in due time. Naming tab stacks and groups is probably a bit less likely, but I would not rule it out.
However, literally nothing can be done about the fact that a Vivaldi "window" is not a Chromium "window," so to accommodate extension-generated windows, such that the characteristics of said windows are assigned by the extension, is the hardest-to-code option of all.
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I would prefer to have session management on the sidebar rather than a separate window anyway so I'm ok with that.
I suspect the author behind Tabs Outliner would have implemented it that way if he wasn't barred by some hard-coded Chromium restriction. The ability to name tab groups is very valuable though since it allows you to organise separate browsing sessions by topic and also makes searching through your previous sessions easier.May I ask what is it about tab trees that you so vehemently hate? Is it mere personal preference or is there some deeper principle behind it?
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In my case, there are a few little things. Indented tabs bug me. It bugs me that I never know where the new tab is going to open, instinctively, because I never pay attention to what branch of the "tree" I happen to be on when a link generates a new tab - because I am not grouping tabs in an outline in my head as I work, nor keeping at top of mind that there even IS a child-parent relationship. It bugs me that there is always a little gap between branches, as well as indents. I could (and have in the past) get used to two different locations for tab creation - if it's generated from a link in the tab you're on, it appears next to that tab, and if you just click "new tab" it appears at the end - but only if there's no hierarchy, no parent-child relationship.
I don't like closing a tab that turns out to be a parent tab, and having to answer whether I want its child tabs also closed or not. In my mind there were never any children.
My mind does not operate under a linear outline-style manner of classification. The two halves of my brain are strongly connected, and both linear and intuitive relationships between concepts and objects run in sync with each other. It gives me a really high IQ, but also makes me rebel against fixed relationships between things. Having to turn in papers in outline form in school always drove me a bit mad. In my mind, each sub-topic could reasonably relate to several different major topics, so having to choose where it "should" go gave me pain. My mind arranges subject matter with multiple interconnections, not with hierarchical ones.
And last, when it comes to Tabs Outliner specifically, the visual style of the extension is repellent to me - black background, tiny text, etc.
So, insofar as a person really can explain "why" they don't like something that just grabs them in the gut, that's it.
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My heart just sank a little, when I read this thread. :ohmy:
When I read a few months ago that Vivaldi supported Chrome extensions, I immediately downloaded it to see if it worked with Tabs Outliner. I currently have 21 extensions installed in Chrome, but only 3 or 4 of those are absolute must-haves for me and Tabs Outliner is one of them. When TO did not work, I thought extension support may be preliminary in Vivaldi and from there on, every couple weeks, I would download a new version hoping that the supposed bug was fixed…
If it is indeed as much work as you have described, Ayespy, to get custom Chrome windows and thereby TO to work with Vivialdi, I can see how that would not be a high priority.
I fully agree that TO is a bit ugly, unintuitive at first, and has a few quirks. But once I had put a little time in to understand how it really works and why so many people are fanatical fans of the addon, I was completely blown away by it and utterly hooked. I don't really use it as an always visible vertical tab bar, as some people do, because I prefer the TO window to be very wide so I can see the full text of the individual tabs.
Instead, I use it as a tab/window manager, session manager, and temporary bookmarking tool. For those functions, it blows everything out of the water that I have tried so far, and I have tried pretty much every single one of those addons, for both Chrome and Firefox.
The idea to manage both active tabs and inactive ones (i.e., temporary bookmarks) in one streamlined interface, which allows for rapid reorganization/cleanup, naming, and commenting, is just absolutely genius in my mind, because it allows you to seamlessly transition between the two states.
Long story short, I think Vivaldi looks like it is on a terrific path and development seems to progress nicely. Even though I won't be able to switch to it soon, as I had hoped, I will definitely keep a very close eye on it. If you start working on session manager functionality in Vivaldi, I would like to strongly encourage you, though, to take a closer look again at the design ideas that underlie TO. There are a number of smaller things that could be improved about TO's actual implementation, but I honestly think that the overall approach is insanely good. If you look at TO's reviews or its mailing list, you see a ton of people who feel the same, some of who are even offering three figure donations for the implementation of certain features, because they have become so much dependent on the addon.
Just one final note: If you find tree style tabs confusing, you can disable them in TO without much loss of functionality. The only thing that works somewhat less well is moving a larger number of tabs between windows / to a new window, because the addon does not currently support selecting multiple tabs. When tree style tabs is turned on, this is not an issue, because you just have to move the "stem" of a tree and all the subordinate tabs move with it.
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Hi there, I have wanted to use TabsOutliner with Vivaldi as well. The workaround I have works partially so far. The extension uses a URL which looks like this
! Tabs Outliner (chrome-extension://eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl/activesessionview.html?type=main&focusNodeId=2&altFocusNodeId=1&scrollToViewWinId=1) for me, and I simply created a new panel with this URL. Works quite well and I can assign a keyboard shortcut to that webpanel.
What I have not gotten to work so far is the paid features, which I have loved dearly in the past. Chrome Sign in just doesn't work, which is to be expected as this is, well, not Chrome. Any workaround would be great if you have one.
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Does the Tabs Outliner (TO) button not create a window on your machine? Or do you just find it more convenient to have TO as a web panel in the sidebar?
It's pretty cool that you figured out how to put TO into the side panel. I'll stick with the regular window, though, because I like it very big, which does not work so well with having TO in the side panel, and it's also faster on my Mac, because I am using a Keyboard Maestro macro to minimize/unminimize the TO window, which is significantly faster than for a new window to be created or the TO web panel to load.
Unfortunately, I don't know a workaround for the Chrome sign-in / paid features not being available issue. I would be highly interested in this as well. The only reason I have not bought the premium version of TO is that it's not compatible with Vivaldi. A few month ago, the TO developer suggested that he may implement a way for TO Premium to work without Chrome sign-in, but it's a bit unclear whether and when he will actually do that.
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Does the Tabs Outliner (TO) button not create a window on your machine?
Yes, it doesn't create a window and as I see on many users V. Maybe only on mac it works.
But TO in side panel is brilliant - thank U monkles! -
Very recently, a friend of mine told me that the Tabs Outliner extension button does not work on his Mac, so it does not seem to universally work on Macs either.
I've migrated my existing Tabs Outliner profile to Vivaldi from Opera (and before that from Google Chrome). Maybe that made a difference.
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That's interesting. Another thing that's not working for me is when I drag tab to change its place in tree, it is copied not moved. Does it work properly on your system?
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When I use the native Tabs Outliner window, dragging a tab works properly, but when I drag a tab in a Tabs Outliner window that was manually opened with the chrome-extension://eggkanoc… URL, I too get hibernated copies of the dragged tab.
That's pretty unfortunate. I had hoped that using Tabs Outliner in a regular browser window was mostly equivalent to using the native window that the extension button creates... or apparently fails to create for most Vivaldi users.
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